Having chickens is a joy. They can be so much fun to watch. Their antics and shenanigans and personalities are often hysterical! Along with the joys come the realities of living in the country where there are coyotes and foxes… and when you have free range chickens… you loose a few.
We decided that since we lost a few hens this year and we were not sure if we would get any hatchlings, that maybe buying a few from the local farm store might not be a bad idea. That way we could introduce some new blood/breeds into the flock.
I looked at the farm store (which is a major chain so I won’t name them here) and all the chicks were jumbled together in large galvanized feed bins this spring. They were a mix of breeds and sexes. One feed bin however… all the signs indicated that all the chicks of various breeds within had been sexed as females! Score! Now we are talking! I want 4 new hens! So I decided on “cinnamon queen” breed and sure enough the photos on my cell phone matched the baby chicks in the store feed bin. Female cinnamon queens are red! All the other breeds indicated by the signs are not. Woot woot! We have a winner! Off I go with my 4 new cinnamon queen baby hen/female chicks.
Fast forward about 10 weeks and hmmmmm two of those hens are starting to get rooster tails! And they are starting to crow! Dang two are roosters! Fast forward some more and now all freaking 4 of my lovely new hens are crowing!!!! I think? So we go online to look them up and discover not only are they not hens (maybe?) but they are probably Rhode Island Reds! What!?!!! Those were not even on the signs for that feed barrel of baby chicks when I bought them! I really should know better because the last time I bought ducks for our pond with visions of duck eggs for cooking (yum!) they all turned out to be male! Same store 🤦♀️🤷♀️🤷♀️🤦♀️
I now have one rooster that I purposefully purchased to start our flock and I’m quite attached to. One rooster that a friend gave me that was supposed to be a hen (we still call that rooster “her” and it has a female name). Four new roosters? that we got from the feed store…. And then came the hatchlings! Which gave us three more roosters (one of which a hawk ate). So I now have EIGHT? freaking ROOSTERS! 🤦♀️🤦♀️🤦♀️
Fortunately since they are all free range they don’t really fight much. There is the occasional “hey get away from my woman!” Incident… but for the most part it’s working ok (so far!) but seriously I wanted eggs not fried chicken! Which is about all you can do with excess roosters lol. My dad is attached to the one rooster that the friend gave us. The 4 new roosters? are attached to the hubby and follow him around like little lost puppies. One of the two hatchlings I’m a bit partial to because I had to hand raise him for a few days. So that leaves one little fellow that would be ok for the frying pan but he’s just too cute and comical to go there (sigh) .
Now we have 10 females and 8? males (including the newest babies). Not to mention the stupid male ducks! (Which mom is partial too and counts them every morning to make sure the coyotes didn’t have a late night snack lol). we did eventually get some female ducks and now we at least get some eggs… but no more purchases from that local farm store!
Which brings me to: if I had bought a shirt or a pair of gloves or anything else from that farm store and it was “faulty” I could have just returned it for a refund, right? But when you buy a chicken or duck it’s buyer beware! If eggs are your goal (and not fried chicken or a lovely roast duck!) then you may be stuck with a barnyard full of fighting males lol
At least they are comical and provide a good laugh! One of the “female” roosters can’t do a full crow and can only say “doodle doo” instead of cock-a-doodle-doo. So”her” name is doodle doo. Her sibling is “doodle don’t” because I don’t know what to call that …but it is NOT a crow or anything that I’ve ever heard before. I can’t even adequately describe how that rooster makes a dying strangled noise instead of crowing, but it is hysterical! All four “female” roosters I got at the local feed store… all of their crows are even broken! I really think they owe me a refund for the broken crows alone! I was sold faulty hens folks!
As for the rest… they make really good “weeders” and can pull lots of weeds for my raised garden beds (or pluck out all the carrot seeds I just planted! 🤦♀️) and are really good about cleaning up any spilled food from the song bird feeders (song birds throw out any seeds they don’t like). seriously guys! I just want some eggs!
******Warning! Faulty chicken! Does not work as advertised! No refunds! No returns! ******
At this point we are pretty sure we have 2 maybe 3 roosters (red ones) but at this point I give up! They will either lay eggs or get eaten. Just not sure by whom (humans, coyotes, foxes etc) they all look so much alike that now I’m not really sure who is crowing and who isn’t! Just… want… some… eggs… to… eat… (sigh) is that too much to ask for?
Oh did I mention the two guineas (one male and one female, a mated pair) who hide their nests so well that we can never find them? Yeah… those guys are a hoot! they remind me of ballerinas in big fluffy tutus when they run across the yard! With black tights and orange ballet shoes… we call them the “shed alarm” because they roost in the tractor shed and go off like a bank robbery alarm whenever anyone drives up. “Somebody set off the shed alarm again” (as hubby pretends to turn the alarm off with his imaginary remote control).
Anyway: chickens (and ducks and guineas and hummingbirds and song birds and…) are addictive! So buyer be warned! You may get a faulty chicken! I suggest finding a friend who sells eggs and go get those! Lol
Conestoga Chuck 